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OPINION

Combating rising drug prices for Missourians

Claire McCaskill
Published 5:04 p.m. CT May 2, 2018

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Sen. Claire McCaskill answers questions during a town hall meeting in the Plaster Student Union Theatre at Missouri State University on Tuesday, March 27, 2018.(Photo: Andrew Jansen/News-Leader)Buy Photo

During the town halls I’ve held across Missouri in the last year, I’ve heard the concerns of thousands of Missourians. And despite what’s on cable news, I didn’t get inundated with questions about political scandals, Washington gossip or partisan food fights.

But what I did hear over and over again from Missourians — young and old, from across the political spectrum — is that they’re getting hit hard by the rising cost of prescription drugs. I heard stories of paychecks and budgets simply not keeping pace with prices that skyrocket year after year. And many of these described increases aren’t on fancy new medicines, they’re for the drugs they’re currently taking. I wanted to get to the bottom of what was happening and how quickly prices were rising for some of the most popular drugs.

One critical step for me was looking at how folks’ anecdotal experiences lined up with the data. So I dug into the annual average list prices for the most-prescribed brand-name drugs in the Medicare Part D program, according to the most recent government data. I wanted to analyze the same drugs over time since there really shouldn’t be big changes in prices. After all, it’s the exact same drugs! If I walked into an auto dealership tomorrow to look for a car and saw that they’d just kept the 2012 models and jacked up the prices, I’d head straight for the exit.

But it turns out that’s exactly what these drug companies had done. Average list prices for every single one of the 20 most prescribed brand-name drugs went up an average of 12 percent per year — more than 10 times the annual average rate of inflation. Many of the average list prices increased by 50 percent in just five years, with one rising by an astounding 477 percent. The simple greed involved in these pricing decisions is stunning.

These endless price spikes aren’t sustainable for Missouri families. The cost increases can mean canceled vacations for some, skipped meals for others — or even folks going without critical medications because the cost is just too high. And ultimately, whether or not you’re on the receiving end of these prices increases, they affect you too. While individuals can and do bear the brunt of some of these price hikes, much of the cost (especially to programs like Medicare) is carried by all of us in the form of higher government spending and more government debt.

President Trump has said he wants to tackle this problem, and I believe him — if he’s looking for someone to work with to stop the endless rise in drug prices, he’s got a partner in me. But there still hasn’t been enough action from him or anyone else in Washington on this issue. But I’ve worked with whomever I could to try to make a dent in this problem. I teamed up with Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine to launch an in-depth investigation into prescription drug price increases. After that, I introduced legislation — now signed into law — to increase competition for generic drugs, as well as a bill to end taxpayer subsidies pharmaceutical companies receive for the billions of dollars they spend on prescription drug advertising each year. And this new data I released will help us take the next steps to address this comprehensive problem.

The Missourians that came to my town halls and write me letters and emails every day are a constant reminder we have to do more. Anybody that knows me knows that when I sink my teeth into a problem, I don’t let go, and I won’t let go of fighting to lower prescription drug costs until we see real progress.